Privacy notice for HB Accountants (a trading name of HBAS Limited)
HB Accountants takes the protection of your privacy very seriously. We will only use your personal information to deliver the services you have requested from us, and to meet our legal responsibilities.
How do we collect information from you?
We collect information about you when you engage us to deliver our services and/or when you use our website. Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to our own website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.
What type of information do we collect from you?
The personal information we collect from you will vary depending upon which services you engage us to deliver. The personal information we collect might include your name, address, telephone numbers, email addresses, your unique taxpayer reference (UTR) number, your national insurance number, bank account details, which pages you may have visited on our website and when you accessed them.
Use of cookies
When you visit our website we may use “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. This information is used to track visitor use of the website and to complete statistical reports on website activity. For further information visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.
On our website we use analytical and statistical tools that monitor details of your visits to our website and the resources that you access, including but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data (but this data will not identify you personally).
We use Google products including: Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Google Adwords. We use these products to understand how the website is being used in order to improve the user experience. User data is all anonymous. The types of data collected includes: IP address, browser-generated information e.g. browser type, operating system, date and time of access, how long a person looks at a website, what they look at etc. Click here for an overview of Google’s privacy policies.
Google Analytics Privacy Policy
How will we use the information about you?
In general terms, and depending on which services you engage us to deliver, as part of providing our agreed services we may use your information to:
- Contact you by post, email or telephone
- Verify your identity where this is required
- Understand your needs and how they may be met
- Maintain our records in accordance with applicable legal and regulatory obligations
- Process financial transactions
- Prevent and detect crime, fraud or corruption
We are required by legislation and other regulatory requirements to retain your data where we have ceased to act for you. The period of retention varies with the applicable legislation but is typically five or six years. To ensure compliance with all such requirements it is our policy to retain all data for a period of seven years from the end of the period concerned.
Security
The transmission of information via the internet or email is not completely secure. However, we have put security measures in place by installing a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) on our website which encrypts all data submitted via the online contact forms and web forms and protects your personal data. We cannot guarantee the security of data while you are transmitting it to our site; any such transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your personal data, we will use our strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
Email tracking
Some emails that we send you have no tracking in at all, e.g. service emails with invoices attached. Other emails include tracking so that we can tell how much traffic those emails send to our site, but we do not know who has clicked so the data is anonymous, e.g. our monthly newsletter. For some emails we can track, at an individual level, whether the user has opened and clicked on links in the email. We use the latter information at a personal level, to understand open and click rates on our emails to try to improve them. If you want to be sure that none of your email activity is tracked, then you can opt out of HB Accountants’ emails which you can do by emailing “UNSUBSCRIBE” to directors@hbaccountants.co.uk
Who has access to your information?
We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.
We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.
Any of our team members with access to your information have a duty of confidentiality under the ethical standards we are required to follow.
Third Party Service Providers
We may recommend you to third party providers for specific services such as financial services or advice in connection with capital allowance claims. We will not release your information to any such providers unless you have requested that we do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention and detection of crime, fraud or corruption.
How you can access and update your information
Keeping your information up to date and accurate is important to us. We commit to review regularly and correct where necessary, the information that we hold about you. If any of your information changes, please email or write to us or call us using the “Contact information” noted below.
Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information
Whilst we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.
Once we receive your information, we make our best efforts to ensure its security on our systems.
Your data will usually be processed in our offices in the UK. However, to allow us to operate efficient digital processes and in order to protect against data loss due to catastrophe, we store backup information in servers which may be located outside the UK, but within the European Economic Area (EEA). We take the security of your data seriously and so all our systems have appropriate security in place that complies with all applicable legislative and regulatory requirements.
Your choices
We may occasionally contact you by post, email or telephone with details of any changes in legal and regulatory requirements or other developments that may be relevant to your affairs and, where applicable, how we may assist you further. If you do not wish to receive such information from us, please let us know by contacting us as indicated under “Contact information” below.
Your rights
Access to your information: You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
Correcting your information: We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date and you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.
Deletion of your information: You have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you where:
- You consider that we no longer require the information for the purposes for which it was obtained
- You have validly objected to our use of your personal information – see “Objecting to how we may use your information” below
- Our use of your personal information is contrary to law or other legal obligations
Restricting how we may use your information: In some cases you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information. This right may apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information about you that we hold, or assessing the validity of any objection you have made to our use of your information. The right may also apply where there is no longer a basis for using your personal information but you do not want us to delete the data. Where this right is validly exercised, we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims, or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.
Objecting to how we may use your information: Where we use your personal information to perform tasks carried out in the public interest then, if you ask us to, we will stop using that personal information unless there are overriding legitimate grounds to continue.
Please contact us in any of the ways set out in “Contact information” below if you wish to exercise this right.
Changes to our privacy notice
We keep this privacy notice under regular review and will place any updates on www.hbaccountants.co.uk. Paper copies of the privacy statement may also be obtained using the “Contact information” below.
This privacy notice was last updated on 2 May 2018.
Contact information
Address: HB Accountants, Plumpton House, Plumpton Road, Hoddesdon, Herts EN11 0LB
Telephone: 01992 444 466
Email: directors@hbaccountants.co.uk
Complaints
We seek to resolve directly all complaints about how we handle your personal information but you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office at
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
Telephone – 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745
Website – https://ico.org.uk/concerns
